Contrast for Dummies

I am finding it difficult to pin down my thoughts about contrast.

At our last contrast meeting, Sherrie, Ada, and I discussed the following:

1. Use contrast to distinguish the background from the foreground.
2. Use contrast to create a shadow effect.
3. Dark colors, pure colors, and warm colors advance when paired with light and cool colors. There are exceptions though.
4. Infrequent accents of a different color or hue create contrast.
5. Patterned fabrics add texture and not necessarily contrast.
6. Contrast helps the eye focus on one area of the quilt.

Egads! What does all that mean?

Next we went off on a bit of a tangent, looking at pictures of quilts and saying where the eye focused. Some of us think the eye will normally focus on recognizable shapes.

We decided it confused the issue to study traditional quilts as well as quilts with scenes. We restricted our study, for now, to "using contrast in traditional quilts." We decided each of us needed to write down tangible thoughts about the topic before our next meeting.

So here I am.

1. Consider whether your quilt has enough contrast. People tend to worry more about how well their fabrics match and fail to think about whether there is the right degree of contrast. They behave as is they are shopping for a sweater to match slacks. For a quilt there is little reason to use 5 nearly identical brown tone-on-tone prints in the assorted blocks. It makes more sense to vary the shades, include small and large prints, geometrics, plaids, stripes. You may have formerly found it hard to find the right 5 matching fabrics. When you increase the contrast between fabrics, you may find it hard to limit yourself to 5.
2. Contrast is a single design element to be considered at every stage of quiltmaking. Ask yourself the following questions. Will you repeat one block over and over in the quilt top? Will you use an alternate block that complements the first block? Will your alternate block be a single square? Light or dark? Print or solid? Do you want the border to contrast with or blend into the rest of the quilt? How many colors will you use in the quilt? How much difference is there between the darkest and the lightest fabrics in the quilt? Will the colors be randomly arranged or will they have a more formal layout? When quilting, will you use overall meandering? Will you quilt some areas in different ways to increase texture? Will you use stencils with specific shapes as well as background fill? Will you use more than one stencil? Do the stencils complement each other? Do you want the thread to be visible or blend? Do you want some quilted areas to be more prominent?
3. Be more purposeful about the amount of contrast used. First you need to decide what results you want. Then you need to understand what to do to accomplish those results.

My advice. Don't cut out all blocks for the quilt at once. Experiment with a few blocks. If you can see you are headed in the right direction, forge ahead. If not, regroup. Don't put yourself in the position of having to continue with something you don't like just because it is all cut.